


One is a Horse, and the Other...

by TailaBlu



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: This is going to be a darker one, Will add warnings as they apply, but i promise it'll get better, sorry about that btw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28084695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TailaBlu/pseuds/TailaBlu
Summary: A young girl named Megumi is travelling somewhere, but she isn't quite sure of why she's travelling to begin with...





	1. Prologue - Is in a Hotel

The sky was as dark as night. Speckles of starlight littered the sky, and with it the many buildings of the city. A skyline meant for looking at. The lights of the skyscrapers mirrored the lights of the night sky, causing a parallel skyline. At the moment, the world behind her was just as dark as the one in front of her. She didn’t want the lights being on. All she wanted to do was sit in front of the window and watch the joined skylines in silence.

Iriziri was a beautiful city. It was well-known for Mr. Fujimoto’s business ventures. He was prone to being seen as the head of Iriziri, in a way. Nobody really ever had a bad thing to say about him, either. He’s charming, witty, a huge role model and most importantly, very rich. People liked people who were very rich.

Really, she didn’t know why she was in a hotel.

When she went to bed that night, she didn’t think she’d wake up somewhere else. Or, at least… She thought she went to bed? She didn’t know, the memory was very hazy.

After a moment, she got back up onto her feet and walked over to one of the two beds. She sat down onto it, feeling the softness of the bed and its fabric. She brought her legs up with her as she allowed the bed to swallow her up. After a moment of being curled into a ball, she sat up and felt around in the darkness for the TV remote.

Click. “Please! Help me find my-” Click. Click. Click. Click. “Take my hand! We can get through this together..!” “Kotoura-san..!”

What a dramatic movie. ...Wait, who was that? She blanked out for a bit.

It was probably nothing.

Megumi always loved anime films. She sometimes wondered if she should try watching one of those specials where the secrets of animation are explained, but she never felt like she could really do it. She didn’t know why, she just didn’t.

“Sometimes I time-travel, Shouta-kun…”

“What do you mean by that??”

“Sometimes, I’ll see something… and I’ll go back in time, even if that thing wasn’t from back then… And I’ll relive that very moment…”

She felt drowsiness approaching and let out a small yawn. She glanced at the alarm clock beside her. 11:26 PM. She definitely should get some sleep…

She turned off the television with a ‘Click’, and then scooched up into her bed, curling up in the center of it. She hugged her knees as she began to doze.


	2. Chapter 1 - Meets an Acquaintence

She was still curled up when she woke up.

Seeing that nothing had changed between when she slept and when she woke up gave her a sense of relief, but she wasn’t sure why. Letting out a tiny yawn as she began to really wake up, she sat up and looked around.

The skyline was still present. After putting back on her glasses, she turned over to the clock to see the time. The alarm clock read 5:00 AM. She assumed that meant she got at least 6 hours of sleep and got up, rubbing her head. She didn’t know why she wanted to get up - normally when she woke up so early she’d try to get herself to fall back asleep.

She walked over to her backpack, which was stuffed with a surprising amount of things. Deodorant, changes of clothes, undies, all sorts of stuff you’d usually take on “sleepovers”. She’d never packed stuff like this before, but she assumed this was normal sleepover accord since a lot of children’s shows would detail what happens during sleepovers and the preparation for them.

She didn’t know the parents of this hotel though. Maybe this wasn’t really a sleepover.

As she dug through her backpack, the thought crossed her mind,  _ How did I pay for this hotel room? I’ve never had a wallet of my own, and there’s no wallet in here… _

She sighed, rubbing the back of her head again.  _ Why can’t I think of anything..? _

She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, as if her thoughts would be up there. They weren’t, and after a moment of searching the ceiling and getting back nothing, she looked down at her backpack and zipped it back up.

* * *

Megumi stepped out of her hotel room with the backpack on her back, ready to take on yet another day of… whatever this was.

_Don’t let people know you’re here unless they work for the hotel,_ a thought rang in her head.

She didn’t know why it popped up, but it immediately made some level of sense to her. Whenever she tried to ask herself why it made so much sense, she’d grasp at straws in her mind, and it felt as though she was missing something obvious. Or, well, no... The possibility was right in front of her, and it felt like she already knew, but at the same time she really couldn’t think of it. Like something on the tip of her tongue.

Following her thought’s advice, she slipped back into her hotel room, thanking her good luck that the hallways were presently empty. She waited for a moment, watching as a whole lot of nothing happened. Nobody walked in or through the area for a long, long time. Once she finally felt the coast was clear, she inched out of the room and looked around.

The hallway had this carpeting she could tell was fairly thick from their plushness against the soles of her sneakers. It was soft enough to make her feel comforted, but firm enough to make her feel safe enough to jog down the hall without tripping on the plushness of the rug.

She gave the patterns on the rug a good look. It was this odd kingdom-esque pattern that was golden against red against black, and swirled along itself until it looped, until it made the duration of the entire hallway and curled in another direction for it to go to any other hallway as well.

If she walked following the pattern, she ought to be able to make it through without doing anything silly because of her anxiety.

_ Stand straight, _ she thought.  _ You need your sense of sight, you know. _

Nevermind, that actually made more sense. As she began to walk down the hallway, she caught a piece of something she’d forgotten. A sense she needed to be more aware of her surroundings. She was trying to avoid something or someone. That’s why she needed her eyes even more than usual - who’s to say they weren’t already here?

She peeked around the corner, noting that her hallway had ended in a singular turn inward, making a right angle that led to a middle of this upcoming hallway, where it would bend again. She didn’t see anyone. Good. This might go smoothly, then.

She took long, low steps, close to the ground and quiet, but quick like a cat on the prowl. She’d snuck around before, she had a bit of an idea how. Like when she got up late at night after a nightmare and wanted to go downstairs to play her gaming system on a volume of 1. Once she got to the next corner, she peeked around it and...

...And a bellhop was approaching, carrying something on a silver dish, hidden under a lid. At least, that’s what she thought it was called. Wait, oh! Dad called it a ‘closhe’. Maybe that wasn’t spelled right in her head, but it sounded right, and accurate to the way he said it.

She slowly rose to her feet, watching as he approached. He was a tall, pale man with brunet hair and an odd way about him. He looked polite, but not really superficially. Most people were polite because it felt good for them to be polite, but she got this feeling from him that being polite was engraved into him, as set-in-stone as... well... things set in stone.

Despite his demeanor, she didn’t want to be caught. She snuck her way back over to the original hallway, crossing the corner just as she suspected the bellhop would be in the hallway she was sneaking through previously. She readied herself to cross back over to her room, peeking at him. He was approaching. He was going to go to her room’s hall.

She was quick as she fled back into her room. She shut the door quietly, and the lock clicked into place. She froze for a moment as the sound registered to her. Maybe it wouldn’t register to him??

It was only now she realized her heart was beating near-painfully in her chest. She definitely needed to calm down...

She walked over into the bathroom of her hotel room.

_ Why did you run from him? I said the hotel staff were fine. _

She frowned a little. She was alone in her room, so maybe she could respond just this once.

“It ju-just... felt weird to be sne-sneaking about, and then he finds me sneaking about and I didn’t announce my presence or anything... M-Might think I was go-going to try stealing something...”

_ Being seen as a criminal would be better than being seen as someone easily frightened. _

She didn’t know why she felt like that was an appropriate thing to think. Or even why this thought - which she now guessed to be intrusive - felt the need to combat her at every stage of whatever this was.

“I-I don’t wa-want to be seen as a criminal by ho-hotel staff..! Ugh, I don’t know wh-why I’m here...”

_ You’re safer here. _

Something about that made her stomach turn. She elected to ignore it instead of responding this time, stepping into the shower.

* * *

Knock knock knock! Megumi jolted. She was in the middle of drying off, wearing one of her sets of pajamas. She’d ignored the weird feeling to pick something less recognizable, because, well... Her PJ’s were pretty comfy, and she needed to be comfy right now.

She rose up off of her bed, walking over to the door and looking through the peephole. She squinted a little as she realized it was the same bellhop as before, standing there with another ‘closhe’. She frowned a little. She didn’t order anything...

_ He’s staff. Open the door. _

She huffed a little to herself. It wasn’t like she had better ideas, but this was starting to feel a little... off. Still, she opened the door, looking up at him.

He opened his mouth to speak, before he realized she wasn't at his eye level, and he proceeded to look slightly downward to be able to see her. He was tall and slender, kind of like a tree, but not. His hair was this desaturated brown, which... in a city where sometimes people have the brightest hair colors imaginable, kind of made him a little easier to notice.

His bellhop uniform, the customary red, gold, and black, seemed to fit well on him. He took just a moment before his brown eyes glittered a little, “Oh! You’re a new guest. My apologies, today feels as though it will be draining. I am the caretaker of this floor of guests. My name is Akio Tanaka, though you may call me whatever you please.”

_ Call him Whatever-You-Please! _

_ No! That sounds silly... _

“O-Oh, ummm... Well, I’m...”

“Muzane! Yes, yes, do not worry, I know your name. I know the name of everyone who stays on this floor.”

Muzane??

She’d never heard that name before in her life. She opened her mouth to question it, but... nothing came out. She blinked a few times. This felt... She blinked a few times, internally uncomfortable.

Wait, what was she worried about again?

“Ah, you look a little troubled... did I use the wrong name?”

“Umm... No, no it’s fine... What’s under that thing?”

“Oh! It’s called a cloche, C-L-O-C-H-E. It’s a pretty foreign name, I don’t blame you if you don’t know it. These usually go over dishes and the like, to hide them before presentation! And normally, it’s presented with a sort of ‘tada’ moment, usually at large dinner tables! Though, I do sometimes wonder if it’s customary to polish them before each presentation. I usually do so between usages so when the time comes, they are as shiny and beautiful as the day I got them! Oh, and the best place to put them is-”

He paused, cheeks flaring up with red, “Oh, my apologies. I’m certainly not paid to ramble. Here you go ma’am, your breakfast!”

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this one's gonna be a lil bit of a weird one, I hope you'll enjoy it though!


End file.
